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UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YORK. 



Address of the President. 



JUNE 23, ISdO. 




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Book D ^Z 



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LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YOBK. 

John y^3ty 



Address of the President. 



JUNE 2S, 1866, 







12-^ /■ 



(Hcnllcmcn of Ibc (Llniou 3f tngiu (flub, 

When I acknowleclg-ecl from Naples tlio notification 
of my election as President, I proposed to address you 
at an early day in reference to the pending- national 
issues in which the country is so deeply interested, 
and in reg'ard to which our countrymen in Europe are 
neither unobservant nor indifferent. The fast-changing 
issx;es, however, reminded me that it would be more 
than superfluous to attempt advice in detail from such 
a distance, to a body thoroughly conversant with the 
whole subject, and accustomed not simply to judge 
Avisely, but when the occasion demands it, to act 
promptly. 

With this apology for my past silence, and the re- 
newed expression of my regret at my prolonged ab- 
sence from the post with which you have honored me, 
I beg leave to offer a few thoughts, not so much upon 
specific questions immediately before the country, whose 
aspect may change from week to week, as upon the 
political situation gencrall}', and the ends which I think 
should be kept in view in our efforts to give tone and 
scope to the national policy. 

If the distance and the contrasts afforded by an Eu- 
ropean standpoint are not unfavorable to a complete 
view of our continental Republic, its past history, its 
present position, and its future relation to the peoples 
and the Governments of the world, they are not equally 



4 



favorable to accuracy of detail : and should I at all 
misread recent events, you will remember that with 
what has occurred since my departure I am less familiar 
than yourselves. 

THE PAST HISTORY OF THE CLUB. 

The illustrious part borne by the Club throughout the 
war, justifies the country in expecting them to assist in 
solving the problem that the war has left us, especially 
at a moment when the Legislative and Executive branches 
seem unable to agree, and the Government is in conse- 
quence disjointed in its action and divided in its influ- 
ence. It is not forgotten that in advance of the or- 
ganization of the Club the country was in great part 
indebted to its founders, representing conspicuously the 
culture, intelligence, and generous wealth of New York, 
for the pluck that nerved the Cabinet of Mr. Lincoln, 
and supplied the money and the credit that enabled 
him to maintain the national honor, in spite of rebel 
thefts and an empty Treasury. 

The country was again indebted to them for that 
magnificent gathering in Union place, which promptly 
accepted the challenge of war given at Sumter, and 
which pledged New York, upon whose sympathy and 
aid the traitors had confidently relied, to the cause of 
the Constitution and the Union. 

The voice of our loyal citizens then solemnly uttered 
was re-echoed throughout the land, and from that hour 
the suppression of the rebellion, however difficult a task, 
was to the intelligent observer a foregone conclusion. 

Months passed, and encouraged by the doubting and 



dilatory policy that unhappily prevailed at Washington, 
and the seeming- disposition on the part of tlic Gov- 
ernment to conciliate the rebels by excepting slavery 
from the rules of war, treason again grew defiant in 
our midst, and the Union League Club was organized 
to subdue it. Grappling with the spirit of disloyalty 
that vaunted itself in our streets as insolently as at 
Richmond, that sought in every way to hamper and 
overawe the Government and to encourage the rebels 
and their foreign abettors, we drove that treason from 
our public marts and churches and drawing-rooms to 
its secret haunts, and we replaced it with a healthful 
sentiment that radiated from our city and reinspired 
the country with loyalty to the Government, devotion 
to tlie flag, and undying faith in the Republic. 

In this work we were soon assisted by loyal clergy- 
men who defiantly flung from their steeples their coun- 
try's banner and denounced the Rebellion from their 
pulpits as a crime against God and man ; and presently 
the rebels in New York were astonished to find the 
stars and stripes waving over an hundred churches, 
and allegiance to the Constitution enjoined solemnly as 
a Christian duty. 

Then followed in the action of the Club practical aid — 
of far less importance, it is true, but still worth re- 
membering — in the raising of thousands of volunteers : 
three regiments of colored troops, and more for Han- 
cock's Cori)S, when j'ou partially reawakened the pa- 
triotism of Tammany'^ Hall ; and also in the untold 
amounts of money which flowed like water at eacli new 
emergency of the war and at every demand of the 



6 



Sanitary Commission. But the g-rand service performed 
by the Club was their moral and social influence, puri- 
fying the Northern atmosphere, inspiring everywhere 
love of country, hope, and confidence, and animating 
our brave soldiers and sailors with the thought that 
while they fought a desperate foe at the front, we were 
guarding them from a more insidious enemy in the 
rear. 

I need not remind you, for those are among our 
choicest memories, how cordially our aid was appreci- 
ated by the gallant officers of our Army and Navy, 
whom we have welcomed at our rooms, and by the 
battle-thinned regiments, whom we have greeted on 
their return ; uor how constantly the advice and as- 
sistance of our more experienced members was sought 
by the Executive, by Congress, and in every depart- 
ment of the Governmental service. 

Tlic conduct of the Club during the war has passed 
into history, and will form no unimportant chapter in 
the story of the Rebellion. I refer to it now, not as 
claiming for the members of the Club or for the loyal 
population of our city whom they represent, any ex- 
traordinary patriotism — for the same sleepless devotion 
animated hundreds of thousands throughout our land ; 
and in the history of the world there is no record 
of a contest which from beginning to end was so en- 
tirely carried on by the people themselves, supplying 
to the conscientious Executive, who confessedly awaited 
their will, the needed energy of purpose, and the re- 
quisite material of war. 



THE CHARACTER, INFLUENCE, AND DUTIES OF THE CLUB. 

I allude to the past simply as illustrating the present 
position of the Club, its responsibilities and duties. 

That it has grown to be a political power, whose 
influence is widely felt and deeply feared, is on all sides 
admitted : and here perhaps courtesy demands the re- 
cognition of the establishment of an avowedly oppo- 
sition Club, as a frank and significant tribute to our 
influence. 

To the national character of the Union League Club 
and the breadth of its organization, embracing men of 
diiferent political opinions, who, having reflected honor 
upon antagonistic parties, united in defence of the 
country, was added the combination of circumstances 
which enabled the Club to render such extraordinary 
service to the country in making Now York — which 
in January, 1861, it was officially proposed by the 
then Mayor, should secede both from the Union and 
the State — the chief support of the Government ; and 
these might have sufficiently accounted for the influ- 
ence of the Club, so distastefid to the faction wdiose 
designs we had defeated. But beyond these claims to 
regard, the Club has inspired confidence and compelled 
respect by its independency of political dictation, and 
its superiority to the narrow claims of ambitious par- 
tisans ; by the frankness and firmness of its discus- 
sions of the conduct of the Administration and the 
policy of its leaders, and, above all, by its unvarying 
adherence to the broad principles of the national Con- 
stitution and of national iustice. 



These arc tliu features that have enabled the Club 
to speak for so g-reat a multitude of the loyal citizens 
of New York, and never was there a city whose warn- 
ing voice, when the Republic is in danger, commands 
a larger or more attentive audience. 

THE NATIONAL PROMINENCE OF NEW YORK. 

Relieved by its easy pre-eminence in all the elements 
of metropolitan greatness from even the suspicion of 
envy of its sister cities, New York is universally re- 
cognized as the commercial centre of the continent, 
interested in the prosperity of its remotest parts : and 
the fast growing centre also of science, art, and letters, 
which are henceforth to be numbered among the crown- 
ing glories of our free Republic. It is also worthy of 
note, that the feeling of national and individual pride 
with which our fellow-citizens from every quarter tread 
our streets and feel themselves at home, is strength- 
ened by the thought that our Revolutionary history 
and colonial annals, from the settlement of New Am- 
sterdam by the Dutch, the English, and the Huguenots, 
with their broad views of political freedom and religious 
toleration, were the fitting antecedents of a city which, 
excepting only the disloyal element which you so no- 
tably hold in check, has notliing narrow or provincial 
in its character. 

Thus it has come to pass that, instead of representing 
simply the interest of a state, or the views of a sec- 
tion, New York, the acknowledged metropolis of the 
Republic, represents the largest interests, the grandest 
characteristics, and, excepting the anti-national sympa- 



thies of a clasfi, the truest principles of the American 
people. 

THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT. 

Passing from these introductory remarks on the po- 
sition of the Union League Club as an exponent of 
the loyal sentiment of our city, allow me, gentlemen, 
to offer you my heartiest congratulations upon the con- 
stitutional passage of the "Civil Rights Act," which 
I observed with pleasure you had assisted by your 
influence, and liad saluted on its enactment with one 
hundred guns as the last great vict<jry in the war 
against slavery-. AVhile I think that the Supreme Court 
would have decided, whenever the question should have 
come before them, that the Amendment to the Consti- 
tution abolishing slavery made the freed slaves citizens 
ipso facto without the aid of Congressional legislation, 
I still deem the Civil Rights Act the proper comple- 
ment to the Anti-Slavery Amendment, since it removes 
all misapprehension as to the position which tlie Amer- 
ican Republic is henceforth to occupy before the world, 
as regards the relations of its people towards each other. 
It is an interesting and encouraging fact, that the great 
principle of this bill had been already recommended bj- 
Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, the late Vice-President of 
the Rebel Confederacy, in his speech before the Legis- 
lature of Georgia, on the 23d of February, as one 
that should from the first inspire the legislation of the 
Southern States, so that ample and full protection should 
be secured to the freedmen "that they may start" (I 
quote his own words) " equal before the law in the 



10 



possession and enjoj^mcut of all rig-lits of personal lib- 
erty and property." 

There is now an end not simply of the economic 
dogma attributed to a recent Democratic cr.ndidate for 
the Vice-Presidency, Mr. Herchell Y. Johnson, that 
"capital should own its laborers," but of the doctrine 
so long practically taught even from the puli)it and 
the bench, that black men have no rights that white 
men are bound to regard. The Civil Rights Act, pla- 
cing the former master and the freedman on an equal 
footing before the law, overthrows that system of aris- 
tocracy, which, commencing with the oppression of 
helpless blacks, resulted in the degradation of the 
laboring whites. 

After a national existence of ninety years ]iasscd 
in the violation of rights which we ourselves had pro- 
claimed sacred, chastised and humbled, we return to 
the truth to which we pledged ourselves when we took 
our place in the family of nations. We have renounced 
before the law Slavery and Caste ; we have repudiated, 
in determining the personal rights of citizens, aiistoc- 
racy of color and classification of race ; we stand 
upon the simple doctrine of our fathers, that all men are 
born with an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit 
of happiness. Our countrymen have learned late and 
slowly, but they have learned sadly and surely, that 
with this sign only, can they maintain the unity, free- 
dom, and honor of our Republic. 

In contempt of that foundation principle of the Gov- 
ernment, the Democratic party, swayed by slavery, had 
promulgated the doctrine that the chains of the slave 



11 



were the bonds of the Union. So stubbornly had this 
idea perverted the national judg-meut, that when, after 
meditating the assault for a quarter a century, slav- 
ery threw off its cloak of devotion to the Union 
and assaulted the Government in open rebellion, even 
the Republican administration of Mr. Lincoln hesitated 
to recognize in slavery the nation's foe, and evinced a 
readiness to court and cherish it as before. 

DISASTROUS RESULTS OF OUR PRO-SLAVERY POLICY 
IN EUROPE AND AT HOME. 

On the 22d of April, 1861, after Sumter had fallen 
and loyal blood had been shed at Baltimore, the Gov- 
ernment assured our Minister to France that " the rev- 
" olution was without a cause, without a pretext, and 
"without an object, and that the condition of slavery in 
"the several States would remain just the same whether 
" it should succeed or fail." From that fatal policy so 
blindly adopted and so boldly announced, without con- 
tradiction or rebuke from the Congressional committees 
on foreign relations for many months, came the larger 
share of all our troubles. France and England, act- 
ing in concert, and with no friendly motives, instantly 
perceived the effect of our admission that the Rebellion 
was not in the interest of slavery, and our assurance 
that the war of the Union would not le allowed to become 
a war of emancipation. They saw that we had voluntarily 
confirmed the repeated but hardly credited declarations 
of the rebels that we were as pro-slavery as them- 
selves. They saw that we had furnished ample justifi- 
cation for the delusive theory which they hastened to 



12 



adopt, that tlie war involved no question of slavery, 
immediate or remote ; ])ut was simply a stnig-gle for 
empire on the one hand, and independence on the other — 
a struggle in which the sympathies of the world might 
properly be given to the weaker party gallantly con- 
testing against odds. They recognized the fact that we 
had enunciated a policy that must strengthen the rebel 
cause, and perplex and alienate the liberals of Europe ; 
that would put to silence and confusion our anti-slavery 
friends, and enable the European governments to pursue 
what course they liked, without interference from that 
instinctive popular sentiment whether in Great Britain 
or on the Continent, which they well knew would not 
tolerate European interference to assist even indirectly 
tla a war of slavery against freedom. 

The enunciation of a pro-slavery policy from Wash- 
ington was responded to within four weeks by the 
Powers of Europe, with that insidious policy — in whicli 
Russia alone, to her immortal honor, refused to acquiesce 
— which by encouraging and promoting the Rebellion cost 
us hundreds of thousands of lives and thousands of 
millions of money. 

It was adopted in Great Britain in violation of the 
understanding of Mr. Dallas that Lord John Russell 
would await the arrival of Mr. Adams and the expla- 
nation he would bring of Mr. Lincoln's intentions ; and 
even the ability of that eminent diplomatist, worthy of 
his father and of his grandfather, was unable to save 
us from the consequences of our blunder. 

In May, France and England, acting in concert, 
opened on us simultaneously with their proclamations 



13 



of belligerency and neutrality, in favor of bellig-crents 
without a fleet or a port ; but English ship-yards furnished 
the one, and English colonies supplied the other, and then 
came the pirates, who, amid the plaudits of our foreign 
foes, dispensed with prize courts and substituted the 
torch, and swept our commerce from the seas. 

At home a like disastrous fate attended our ill-star- 
red efforts to war at once for freedom and slavery, 
and to establish our own liberties by riveting the fet- 
ters of the slave. 

The Army order, embodying the policy we had pro- 
claimed to Europe, and violating the first rules of war, 
which, as we entered the enemy's country, drove from 
our camp the loyal slaves who came to aid us, and the 
other orders that turned our officers into slave-catchers, 
and threatened with "the iron hand" the blacks whose 
assistance we were soon to crave, were followed by 
defeats and disasters which bowed the nation in shame 
and sorrow. 

HAPPY RESULTS FROM A POLICY OF JUSTICE. 

When after many weary months, and a sad waste of 
life and treasure in a vain attempt to escape the issue, 
our cautious but honest President yielded at last to the 
absolute necessity of the case and the peremptory de- 
mand of the people, and boldly struck at slavery, the 
European world recognized the truth which should have 
been told to them from the start, that as the rebellion 
was the work of slavery, the war waged for the Con- 
stitution and the Union, to be waged successfully, must 
become a war for freedom. 



14 



The Proclamation of Emancipation, as our Ministers 
abroad promptly assured ns, instantly opened the eyes 
and touched the liberal heart of Europe. Its people saw 
that we were fighting their battles — the battle of human 
rights against the usurpations of a class aristocracy, and 
from that hour no Government of Europe, however hos- 
tile to us, nor any number of such Governments com- 
bined, would have dared to brave the moral sentiment 
of their own people and of the Christian world by in- 
tervening in furtherance of a war for slavery. We 
learned too late that in denying the simple fact that 
slavery was the cause and object of the Rebellion, and 
in presumptuously announcing that slavery should con- 
tinue just the same whether we succeeded or failed, we 
had played into the hands of our enemies at home, and 
had enabled our foreign foes to heap upon us insult and 
wrong and to prolong and intensify the struggle. 

With the adoption of the policy of justice forced upon 
the Government bj^ the people, the God of justice 
smiled upon our cause, the slaves rallied in defence of 
their country's flag, and that flag advanced by land and 
sea, until was accomplished a triumph such as the 
world had never seen before, and at which it has not 
yet ceased to wonder. 

To that triumph, signally postponed until we had in- 
augurated emancipation as a matter of military neces- 
sity, and at the same time of humanity and of right, 
may be applied with equal truth the solemn reminder 
of Madison at the close of the war of our Revolu- 
tion, embodied in the address of the Continental Con- 
gress : " Let it ever be remembered that the rights for 



15 



" which we have couteiided were tlie rights of liuman 
nature." 

It seems impossible to mistake the lesson taiig-ht us 
by the war at every step, in its inception, its progress, 
and its close. It is that we cannot trample with im- 
punity on the rights of the blacks, and plead color or 
race as an apology for the crime ; but that our mutual 
riglits and liberties and interests, however widely sep- 
arated in appearance, are in reality so identified by the 
Ruler of nations, that if we would enjoy the blessings 
of a Free Government we must accord these blessino-s 
equally to them. 

This is undoubtedly the deep conviction of the loyal 
part of the American people, whose sleepless energy 
and undying patriotism maintained the war, in spite of 
obstacles and blunders, and the blood of whose sons 
and brothers has been shed ou the battle-fields of our 
country, that henceforth the prosperity of America can 
consist only with justice. 

I have observed without concern an intimation from 
the so called Democratic press, that the Civil Rio-hts 
Act would not be regarded by the President as law, 
because it had previously met his disapproval. The 
suggestion, while worthy of its source, is, I am persua- 
ded, most unjust to the President, who, however decided 
in being guided by his own convictions, and in main- 
taining the rights of the Executive Department, will be 
doubtless equally conscientious in recognizing the pow- 
ers of Congress and obeying the requirements of the 
Constitution. 



16 



THE EFFECT OF THE AMENDMENT ON LEGISLATION 
FOR A "SLAVE CLASS." 

A late judicial decision in the South ag-ainst the con- 
stitutionality of the Civil Rig-hts Law, must presently 
bring the case before the Supreme Court for final adju- 
dication ; and then we may hope for an authoritative 
exposition of the changes wrought by the Amendment 
to the Constitution, and by the Congressional legislation 
appropriate thereto, upon tlie national policy and the 
rights of citizens ; and perhaps also upon some of the 
antiquated State laws that imposed disabiltics and pen- 
alties not for crime, but for race and complexion. 

A class of judicial questions growing out of slavery 
and its incidents, which had been finally settled, as was 
supposed, under the Constitution as it was, would seem 
to be disturbed, if not re-opened by the Constitutional 
amendment, that has substituted freedom for slavery as 
the premise of the argument by which their validity 
was formerly established. 

It may possibly be that the identical course of in- 
ductive reasoning, which, starting from the view of the 
late Chief Justice that the framers of the Constitution 
of 1189 regarded the blacks as having no rights what- 
soever, served to establish upon that basis, by the se- 
verest logic, the rights of the States to disfranchise, 
outlaw, degrade, and insult what Mr. Taney called " the 
slave races," a class thus uncared for and unprotected 
by the Constitution, may lead to a different conclusion 
when the judges commence with the new fact, that the 
American people in their sovereign capacity have con- 
stituted, ordained, and established that the members of 



17 



the race thus disfranchised shall be equally entitled with 
themselves to the inalienable rights of American citi- 
zens. 

That distinguished Democrat, the late John C. Spencer, 
once said in our State Legislature, of the Declaration of 
Independence : " That first act of our nation being a 
solemn recognition of the liberty and equality of all 
men ****** was the corner-stone of your Con- 
federacy, and is above all constitutions and all laws." 
The course of judicial decision that culminated in the 
recognition of slavery as a national institution, to such 
an extent that Mr. Buchanan assumed that Kansas was as 
much a slave State as South Carolina, diverted atten- 
tion from the fact so plainly declared by Mr. Spencer. 
But now, taking together the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence and the American Constitution, we can all see, 
in the words of President Johnson, that " our Govern- 
"ment is a grand and lofty structure, and in searching 
" for its foundation we find that it rests on the broad 
"basis of popular right." 

THE DISAGREEMENT AT WASHINGTON. 

The pending disagreement between Congress and the 
Executive, and the warm discussions to which it has 
given rise, have excited among our loyal countrymen 
abroad profound regret, and perhaps some doubt whether 
by a wiser tact, a mutual deference, and a more grace- 
ful courtesy, this most unfortunate antagonism might 
not have been lessened or avoided ; but until recently 
it has caused them no great alarm, as endangering 

2 



18 



the harmony of the Government or the destiny of the 
country. 

They have made a g'enerous allowance for the honest 
differences of opinion developed in the discussion on the 
Constitutional and other questions involved in the prob- 
lem of reconstruction ; differences so wide and deep, 
among many who, educated in opposite schools, have 
stood shoulder to shoulder in the war, as to recall 
forcibly the remark of Dr. Franklin, that " the invisi- 
" ble chains of habit are scarcely heavy enough to be 
"felt until they are too strong to be broken." 

They have at the same time regarded it as next 
to impossible that the rupture should become positive 
and permanent : first, from their confidence that the pa- 
triotism and right feeling of the President and of Con- 
gress, so conspicuously exhibited in the past, would in- 
duce on their part an united effort at harmonious action 
in reference to the points at issue ; and next, from 
their conviction that the American people would not 
quietly acquiesce in a prolonged antagonism, partly 
political, but withal strangely personal, between their 
Executive and Congressional servants, at a time when 
national issues of pressing importance demand their 
earnest and cordial co-operation. 

EUROPEAN INTEREST IN OUR DIVISION. 

Our European foes are watching the wranglings in 
our Union ranks with an interest similar to that which 
they exhibited in the progress of the war. Whatever 
threatens a permanent division in the Union party, or 
indicates to their hopes the reinstatement in power of 



19 



the disloyal Democracy of the North and the unre- 
pentant rebels of the South, is hailed by our Conti- 
nental opponents with a pleasure that they care not 
to conceal. When occasionally the comments of the 
European press, most unjust and unfriendly during the 
war, are marked by an apparent disinterestedness Avell 
calculated to deceive the careless reader, it is well to 
remember the hostile stand-point from which they 
view the subject, and to read their advice by the 
light of the fact, that their dislike of the American 
Eepublic is as inevitable in the future as it was irre- 
pressible in the past. Our divisions are represented 
as indicating not simply a defect in the machinery of our 
Government, but an inherent weakness in our national 
Union, which for the present at least may justify for- 
eign powers in doubting our readiness to test the loy- 
alty of the South in the chances of a foreign war. 
This idea may naturally embolden the European pow- 
ers who have been balked in their hopes of our dis- 
solution to treat with indifference and contempt our 
just demands, or to exhibit towards our traditional 
disapproval of their intermeddling with our immediate 
neighbors, no further respect than may seem to be 
paid by the convenient assurances and diplomatic prom- 
ises with which we have been blinded and beguiled. 
Renegade Americans are not wanting who ply their 
trade of foreign intrigue, and I have chanced to meet 
with a pamphlet that curiously indicates the ingenious 
hate of a disappointed traitor, and may serve to re- 
mind us that henceforth we must be prepared to en- 
counter a foreign hostility aided and abetted by the 
intelligence of our own disloyal countrymen. 



20 



The writer, under the sig-nificant signature of " Index," 
proposes to the Congress that had been expected to 
meet in Paris, that they may peaceably settle the im- 
pending European question by recompensing Austria 
for the loss of Venetia on the one hand and of Holstein 
on the other, by a permanent European guarantee to 
the House of Hapsburg of — Mexico ! 

This novel proposition is urged upon the ground that it 
will be the only way to check the progress of the United 
States, and to prevent them in connection with Eussia, 
whom the writer denounces for her sympathy with us 
in the war with slavery, from monopolizing and di- 
viding the Oriental trade of the Pacific Ocean, which 
the Czar, " once firmly seated in his Eastern saddle," 
can convert presently into " a mere Kussian lake." 

To arouse the alarm of Europe at the dangers to 
be apprehended from our lawless ambition, the writer 
remarks : 

" Just before the American war began, Secretary 
" Seward said, in his great speech at St. Paul, that 
" the destiny of the United States was to absorb all 
"the British possessions in North America, and that, 
" with its capital removed from Washington to the 
" Halls of the Montezumas, the Great Kepublic would 
" one day appropriate all the South American States, 
"even unto Terra del Fuego," &c., and after this as- 
sertion lie refers to a recent proposition in Congress 
to change the name of the United States to America, 

The responsibility that attaches to the utterances of 
European statesmen, and gives such weight to every 
word that falls from those who sway the destinies of 



21 



Europe, naturally dispones Europeans to attach some 
degree of importance to the language used by Ameri- 
cans in developing the foreign policy of our Republic. 

With slavery has been extinguished the spirit that 
warred upon Mexico, and in the Ostend Manifesto 
threatened Spain with the loss of Cuba ; and the pres- 
ent policy of our country is emphatically one of peace 
and non-intervention, forming a striking contrast in 
this respect with the conduct of France towards Mex- 
ico, of Spain towards Chili, of Austria and Prussia 
towards Denmai-k, and generally with the behavior 
towards each other of the various members of the 
happy family of Europe. 

As the American people are fully occupied with their 
own concerns, and entertain no thought of aggession 
and no design of annexation — no wish, in European 
phrase, to revise the map and rectify the boundaries 
of America — it may be wise in our prominent orators, 
representing either the Government or the people, to 
avoid language that shall seem to indicate an insati- 
ate policy of indefinite absorption, and which may 
sometime be used more effectually than at present, in 
invoking against us an European coalition. A recent 
writer in the Eeviie des Deux-Mondes, M. Michel Chev- 
alier, gives warning that in thirty years America will 
be a match for the whole of Europe, remarking that 
among the virtues of the great Republic, modesty and 
reserve are not conspicuous, and that we are apt to 
affect towards the Old World an attitude of provoca- 
tion and disdain. He refers to the tone of our late 
peremptory despatch to Austria forbidding the depart- 



22 



lire of volunteers for Mexico, and recommends the Eu- 
ropean Powers not to divide and waste their forces, 
but to adopt a concert of organization with reference 
to the future. 

Deeming wise the maxim that enjoins a due regard 
to the policy of an opponent, I have listened, not with- 
out interest, to the views taken of our political situ- 
ation by some of the rebel sympathizers among our coun- 
trymen in Europe, expressed perhaps with less reserve 
than is occasionally exhibited at home. 

VIEW OF THE SITUATION BY REBEL SYMPATHIZERS 
IN EUPROPE. 

Frankly admitting that the people of the South were 
prepared when they laid down their arms, to acquiesce 
without question in whatever conditions the national 
authority might have imposed, precisely as they ac- 
quiesced in the several recommendations of the Presi- 
dent, which under the circumstances had the sanction 
of power — declaring void their ordinances of secession, 
repudiating their own debt, and abolishing slavery — 
they were nevertheless now resolved to insist that the 
former constitutional rights of the States were unim- 
paired by the war, and had revived at its close in 
undiminished vigor the moment they laid down their 
arms and submitted to the Government. 

The recommendations or mandates of the President, 
especially that requiring them to adopt the Constitu- 
tional Amendment, which struck at the foundation of 
their social and political system, and swept away rights 
carefully guaranteed by their State Constitutions, they 
now hold to have been an act of executive usurpa- 



23 



tion, without any authority in the Federal Constitu- 
tion, and justly entitling them to compensation. 

It was acceded to, they say, simply from necessity, 
and for the reason that slavery was already shattered 
by the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln. 

They profess to regard the President's recent course 
and language as an abandonment of the theory on which 
he originally dictated conditions, and as an admission 
that the national Government had no right to interfere 
in any manner with the State Constitutions. 

They do not propose to forgive the President for 
his desertion from the Democratic party at the com- 
mencement or during the progress of the war, nor for 
his conduct as President in abolishing slavery and 
revolutionizing the Southern Constitutions. It is the 
rule of their party never to forgive, and never to trust 
again one who has deserted or betrayed them ; but 
they will sustain his administration with apparent cor- 
diality so long as he neutralizes the power of Congress. 
The division in the Government they will, of course, 
assist as far as possible ; they are charmed with the 
qiiarrel as it stands, and indulge the hope that the 
spirit exhibited on both sides by the Republican lead- 
ers will soon render the breach irreparable and their 
own triumph certain. 

They regard their position as vastly improved by 
what they call the blunders of the Kepublicans since 
the close of the war. 

Then they occupied the position of a party not simply 
defeated, but in disgrace alike with the national Gov- 
ernment, which they had opposed, and with the rebels, 



24 



whom they had lured into the war and had then deserted ; 
whereas now they are able to claim credit as loyal 
supporters of the Administration, and the most earnest 
in their demands for the restoration of the Union, the 
observance of the Constitution, and the harmonizing 
of tlie country. 

They regard the course generally pursued by Con- 
gress towards the South as a mistaken party policy, 
both in reference to the future politics of the South 
and the relations of tlie whites and the freedmen ; tend- 
ing to force the whole South back into the Democratic 
ranks notwithstanding its displeasure with its Northern 
allies, and to excite increased unfriendly feeling be- 
tween the races and render the position of the freed- 
men more doubtful and difficult. 

They admit that they had utterly underrated the 
strength and depth of the national feeling for the 
Union by which the Eebellion was overthrown ; but 
they do not believe in any such devotion on the 
part of the North to the interests of the freedmen, 
now that their personal rights are firmly established, 
as to justify the policy of those Eepublicans who 
would postpone reconstruction simply to secure at the 
South an extension of colored suffrage that has been 
repudiated in the Northern States ; and they anticipate 
in the coming elections a marked diminution of the- 
Kepublican strength, and where the Republican party 
is divided they look for the election of Democratic 
members. They profess indifference to the Constitu- 
tional Amendments now before Congress, declaring that 
they will never be adopted by the Southern States ; 



25 



and they rejoice in the defeat by Eeptiblican votes in 
the Senate of the first amendment that had passed 
the House, basing representation upon the actual vo- 
ters ; for that amendment having been approved by 
the President, they think would have been adopted, 
in which case the future power of the South would 
have been permanently curtailed ; whereas by its de- 
feat the number of their representatives will remain 
unchanged until after 18*10, with thirty members in 
addition to the number to which they would be entitled 
by their white population ; and this number will be 
then increased, to fifty by the new census, adding two- 
fifths to the count of the freedmen. 

In 1868 they anticipate the complete re-establishment 
of their party by the election of a President with the 
aid of the electoral votes of the South, which they be- 
lieve no Congress will dare to reject after the govern- 
mental recognition of those States in the Amendment to 
the Constitution. Then, if not before, they will pro- 
ceed to repudiate the National War Debt, of which 
a suggestion was early thrown out by Governor Sey- 
mour of New York ; or if this should prove too diflB- 
cult a task, from the policy adopted by Mr. Chase of 
giving the bulk of the population an interest in its 
inviolability, they will either relieve the South of its 
share of the debt, throwing the entire burden upon 
the North, or, which they think may answer the same 
purpose, they will generously compensate the South for 
the slaves that have been emancipated through the 
action of the President. 

Whether this opposition view of the situation, thus 



26 



hastily sketched, contains anything that will be new 
to you may be a question, but it seems to me to 
suggest a possibility, at least, of danger to the Union 
party and the national interests ; and to prudent states- 
men a suggestion of danger should open the way to 
its avoidance. 

THE DANGERS THREATENED BY A DISSOLUTION OF 
THE UNION PARTY. 

Wlien the majestic principles of the Union party 
shall have been thoroughly incorporated into the na- 
tional policy ; when the last trace of slavery and the 
aristocracy it has engendei'ed, and the last possibility 
of a sectional issue based upon its remains, shall 
have disappeared, the Union party will naturally dis- 
solve in the face of new issues, but the parties who 
succeed it will bear its emblem upon their banners. 

In advance, however, of that time, and while slavery 
is yet struggling like a scotched snake, and Emanci- 
pation is not yet a complete success, and the leaders of 
the Rebellion at the North and the South, untouched by 
the gentleness and generosity of the American people, 
propose to requite their magnanimity by a scheme of 
national repudiation, or, if that be impossible, revenge 
themseves for defeat in the field by imposing new 
taxes upon citizens of the North, the dissolution of 
the Union party is a very different matter. While 
these dangers threaten us, the dissolution of that mag- 
nificent array of loyal citizens who have saved our 
Republic in its grapple with slavery, and placed it at 
the head of the roll of nations, from which our pro- 



27 



slavery foes attempted to blot its name forever — the 
disruption of that party, however lightly it may he 
regarded in some quarters, and the succession of a 
party disposed to national repudiation, would, I think, 
be a misfortune not only for America, but for the 
world. 

The war of the Rebellion was not a chance insur- 
rection without a cause, a pretext, or an object ; it 
was a contest of antagonistic principles of world-wide 
interest, of hereditary privilege against eternal right, 
of aristocratic assumption against popular freedom ; 
and the great Union party met the shock, fought the 
fight, and won the victory for our country and man- 
kind. 

Wherever you find a noble people, like the Italians 
for instance, longing to throw off the chains of igno- 
rance and superstition, to rid themselves of the tem- 
poral despotism of Rome, and the insolent domination 
of Austria, they look to the example of America as 
to the guiding star of freedom. 

Of this I am reminded by a recent note from Gari- 
baldi, thanking me for the proceedings of the Ameri- 
can breakfast at Naples on Washington's birthday, in 
which he says : 

" The sympathy which comes to me from freemen, citi- 
" zens of a great nation, like yourselves, gives me courage 
" for my task in the cause of Liberty and Progress. 
" I regard to-day the American people as the sole 
" arbiter of questions of humanity, amid the universal 
"thraldom of the soul and the intellect. Please ex- 



28 



"press these, my sentiments, to your countrymen, and 
" believe me, 

" Yours for life, 

" G. Garibaldi. 
"Caprera, 13 March, 1866." 

REPUDIATION OF THE NATIONAL DEBT. 

The suggestion of the repudiation of the national 
debt, especially when sanctioned by the quasi predic- 
tion of so prominent an authority as Governor Horatio 
Seymour, would naturally find favor with the defeated 
party of the South, as one not to be forgotten when 
they may be restored to their former place in the 
Senate and House of Representatives ; but they could 
not hope for the ability to accomplish so signal a 
revenge upon the country that had subdued them, 
without the cordial aid of the Northern Democracy. 

It becomes, therefore, an interesting inquiry, at this 
point of our review of the situation, whether there is 
reason to suppose that any Northern party is capable 
of lending itself to the consummation of such a national 
infamy, or of increasing the heavy burthens already laid 
upon the shoulders of the North by those who en- 
couraged and abetted the Rebellion. 

That the Southern leaders of the Rebellion, defeated, 
broken, disappointed, and depressed, should be disposed 
to follow any Northern party that might hold out a 
bait so tempting, is simply in accordance with human 
nature. 

To sit again as rulers in Congress and block the 
wheels of Government, to annul or depreciate the war 



29 



debt incurred in their subjection, by refusing appropria- 
tions, or to throw the burthen entirely upon the North, 
and then compensate themselves at the expense of 
the nation for the loss of their slaves, which long- 
years ago they valued at twelve hundred millions of 
dollars ; and to do all this, not as traitors in violation 
of their oaths, but as American legislators in pursu- 
ance of what they might assume to be national jus- 
tice, and in accordance with a humane policy of con- 
ciliation ; this is the scheme which it is hoped to ac- 
complish through the division of the Union party, and 
by the aid of Democratic leaders in the North. 

When, after the repeal of the Missouri compromise, 
Southerners were reproached with their violation of a 
sacred compact, they sheltered themselves under the 
plea that it was tendered to them by Northern men, 
and if now a Northern party tenders repudiation of 
the debt, or compensation for their slaves, why should 
they decline the offer ? 

As obvious considerations of policy forbid the intro- 
duction of repudiation or compensation as a i:)lank in 
the Northern Democratic platform, it is proper to in- 
quire how far the antecedents of the national mana- 
gers in the past justify the confidence of rebel sympa- 
thizers in Europe, in their readiness to tamper with 
the national credit, and increase the burthens of the 
Northern people, in order to secure again the support 
of the rebel leaders of the South, and by their aid 
re-establish the national ascendency of the party. 

Governmental credit involves national power as well 
as national honor, and if a division of the Unionists 



so 



in the coming elections is to render probable or even 
possible the success of a coalition having small regard 
to the faith of our Republic, the differences at Wash- 
ington, and the elections for Congress, will assume an 
importance that will be felt alike at home and abroad, 
by Americans and foreigners, wherever a government 
bond is held, or a loyal heart beats in an American 
bosom. 

THE RECORD OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 

The record of the Democratic party for the last six 
years is not to an American who would be proud of his 
countrymen a pleasant study. No ingenuity can avail 
to palliate the part borne by that party during the 
war against the Union. 

When, on the 8th of January last, they met at Tam- 
many, to celebrate the anniversary of the battle of New 
Orleans, and to renew, as they expressed it, their pledge 
that " the Union must and shall be preserved ;" to pro- 
claim to the Southern States Mr. Tilden's touching as- 
surance, "We spread a mantle of oblivion over the 
past," and to woo again to their embrace the wayward 
sisters, whom they had so lately bidden to "depart in 
peace," the hollowness of the farce did not deceive 
even their own orators ; the most eloquent of whom, 
Mr. James T. Brady, reminded them that in its conduct 
during the war, " the Democratic party had proved false 
to the instincts, traditions, teachings, and doctrines of 
its faith." 

That damning fact is one neither forgotten nor to 
be forgotten by the American people ; and it is sig- 



31 



nificant of the sound sense of our citizens that, in the 
State elections thus far held, since the close of the 
war, they have not only refused to elevate to power 
candidates whose record was at all doubtful, but that 
they have refused to honor candidates whose patriot- 
ism had been beyond question, when those gentlemen 
retiring from the Union party had re-appeared in the 
Democratic ranks, and attempted by their own loy- 
alty to reflect respectability upon a disloyal party. 

The facts that sustain Mr. Brady's denunciations of 
the falsity of the party are fresh in our recollection. 

For nearly thirty years the Southern leaders had 
been contemplating secession, as a thing to be accom- 
plished the moment they ceased to control the national 
Government ; and about the time of the nullification by 
South Carolina, in 1832, a medal was struck, as Mr. Pol- 
lard tells us in his Southern history of the war, in- 
scribed " John C. Calhoun, First President of the South- 
ern Confederacy." 

When, in 1860, South Carolina passed the first ordi- 
nance of secession, it was proposed, in stating the causes 
of their action, to justif}^ it by the election of Mr. Lin- 
coln, by the escape of fugitive slaves, and by their fears 
of the Abolitionists. Messrs, Ehett and Parker, and 
Keitt and Inglis, promptly declared the alleged reasons 
to be utterly untrue, and said they had been engaged in 
the movement for a long series of years, and similar 
testimony equally conclusive has been furnished by Mr, 
Everett and other statesmen. 

During those long years of anticipation, these seces- 
sionists, with the cordial aid of Northern Democrats, 



32 



were employed in strengthening themselves for the 
coming struggle, and extending in advance through 
the national Government the area of slavery. To 
them and their intended treachery we owed the Texan 
Eebellion and the war with Mexico, the efforts to bully 
Spain into the sale of Cuba by threatening that we 
would seize if we could not buy it, the fillibustering 
expeditions to Central America, and the lawless revi- 
val of the African slave trade. 

During those long years, while this plot for disso- 
lution was in progress, the Democratic leaders of the 
North charged the anti-slavery party, which was organized 
to expose the immoral character and unconstitutional de- 
signs of slavery, with the very crime of disunion that 
the South with their aid was preparing to perpetrate. 
They denounced as unfaithful to the Constitution and 
traitors to the Union those who adhered to the doc- 
trines of the Fathers of the Republic, and they de- 
manded and obtained the support and confidence of 
the American people by their solemn professions of 
national pride and national affection. 

With the cry, " down with disunion," they perpetrated 
outrages which, if we did not remember, we could 
hardly credit. Mobs in our cities, encouraged by the 
Democratic press, plundered, sacked, burned, and mur- 
dered. There were robberies of the mails by the na- 
tional postmasters ; the denial by Congress of freedom 
of debate and the right of petition ; legislative bills 
of pains and penalties for the punishment of free 
speech, and a free press ; an anti-slavery clergyman 
dragged from his pulpit and imprisoned as a nuisance; 



33 



anti-slavery presses broken and scattered ; an anti-slav- 
ery editor sliot like a dog ; brutal insults towards 
men, women, and children, who disapproved of slavery ; 
such were the deeds by which the Democratic party 
illustrated their devotion for the Union, They de- 
nounced all the Anti-Slavery and Free Soil parties, as 
parties akin to the Hartford Conventionists, who they 
said deserted the country in time of war. They ral- 
lied the people ever and again in Mass Conventions 
to save the Constitution, and they swore continually 
by all that was sacred, that the _ Union must be pre- 
served. 

At length came the traitor's hour, and the blow was 
struck, and the Democratic Administration, whose mem- 
bers, sworn to protect the country, held their seats and 
drew their pay from the Treasury of the people they 
were betraying, played so effectively into the hands of 
the rebels that on the 4th March, 1861, the work of 
national disintegration was far advanced ; and of the 
perfect Uuion intrusted to Mr. Buchanan by a too con- 
fiding nation, he relinquished to his successor what his 
partisans believed and hoped would prove but the dis- 
jointed fragments of our great Republic. The Treasury 
empty ; forts, arsenals, navy-yards surrendered ; arms and 
munitions stolen and dispersed, our little navy scattered 
and disabled, our army officers in part demoralized, and 
treachery lurking in every department of the Govern- 
ment ! 

The world has no record of so wide-spread and des- 
perate a wreck of public integrity and private honor. 
Insurrections and rebellious abound in sacred and 
3 



34 



profane history, but the treachery of our last Demo- 
cratic Administration towards the American people stands 
among- them unapproachable in infamy. 

The darkest picture of brutalizing influences of slav- 
ery, even that drawn by Jefl'erson himself, have been 
exceeded in blackness by the conduct of those who call 
themselves his disciples. 

Their wanton outrages on the rights and feelings of 
the blacks had taught them to trample with a like in- 
difference on tlie rights and feelings of their white 
countrymen. 

Denying first the claims of humanity and justice, they 
gradually reached the point occupied by the traitors in 
the Cabinet and the Senate, who discarded alike honor 
and shame, who retained their seats to complete their 
treason, and lauged to scorn their oaths to protect the 
American Constitution. 

Then was the hour to test fidelity to our National 
Union. Once before had South Carolina inaugurated re- 
bellion, when the Democrats headed by General Jackson 
administered the Government. His bitterest opponent, 
Daniel AVebster, had said : 

" I shall support the President in maintaining this 
" Union and this Constitution, and the cause shall not 
" fail for want of any aid, any efforts, any glorious co- 
" operation of mine. When the standard of the Union 
" is raised and waves over ray head, God forbid that I 
" should inquire who is commissioned to unfurl it and 
" bear it up ! I only ask in what manner I, as an 
" himible individual, can best discharge my duty in de- 
" fending it." 



35 



We know too well the sort of support given to the 
stars and stripes by those Northern Democrats who 
were banded to betray it, and who whenever thej^ raise 
their country's flag- must be reminded of their abortive 
efforts to abase it. 

The world speaks of the Southern Rebellion and South- 
ern traitors, but we had to contend not simply against 
the slave-holding- secessionists at the South, but against 
an army of renegade Democrats at the North abetting 
the rebels in every form. 

To Democratic leaders at New York we were in- 
debted largely for that organized hostility of oar Euro- 
pean foes, which encountered our merchants on every 
sea, and our ministers at every court, and found vent 
in the utterances of a foreign press filled with eulogies 
of the rebels, defamation of our Republic, and predic- 
tions of its fall. 

If the Southern leaders were fiercely indignant with 
their allies at New York for not giving them the armed 
assistance upon which they had relied, they have perhaps 
undervalued the services actually performed by them. 

The Aristocratic Governments and ruling classes of 
Europe, and the moneyed kings on whom they rely, had 
long looked with a dislike latterly intensified by fear 
upon the growing prosperity of our country, and, rightly 
attributing that prosperity to our national unity, they 
had long desired and indeed predicted that our na- 
tionality would be destroyed by dissensions among 
ourselves. 

During* the Rebellion it seemed as if, for the execu- 
tion of their designs against the honor and integrity 



36 



of the country, they had found convenient and skilful 
tools among- the Northern Democracy to assist the 
rebels in their work by hampering the national power 
and depreciating the national credit. 

We have sometimes wondered at the strange belief 
prevalent in Europe in our demoralization as a people, 
their undisguised contempt for the citizens of the 
North, their exaggerated ideas of the power of the 
South, and their confidence in our early dissolution ; 
but why should they not have deemed their day of 
triumph near, when they saw prominent Democrats at 
New York giving aid and comfort to the rebels at 
Kichmond ; when they learned that these same gentle- 
men, intriguing against their own Government, had be- 
sought from Lord Lj'ons foreign intervention ; when 
they saw the once National Democratic party betray- 
ing the country in time of war, and beheld their na- 
tional committee that formerly swore by Jefferson and 
Jackson, led by an eminent foreign banker, late the 
official servant of the Hapsburgs, and still the accred- 
ited agent of the Rothschilds ? 

Of the anti-American tone of our higher Democratic 
circles, and their reflex influence on the Aristocratic 
classes of Europe, a curious proof was given by an 
English nobleman, now the Under-Secretary of War, who 
while in New York at a fashionable entertainment, 
deemed it no discoiirtesy to his host or the guests to 
wear a symbol of the Confederate flag that was at 
the time borne by the pirates of the Atlantic. 

That behavior on the part of one, the motto of 
whose order, noblesse oblige, would have imperatively for- 



37 



bidden such an exhibition of his sympathies in any 
company whom he supposed loyal to their country, 
may assist us to understand how much we are in- 
debted to the leading' Democrats of New York, not 
simply for the tone of the British Aristocracy, and the 
British press, but for the ill-omened judgment of our 
enemies, which induced them to smile upon the inau- 
guration of that cowardly system of piracy, whoso ex- 
ploits, applauded and approved when our dissolution 
was held to be inevitable, the merchants and states- 
men of England now remember as precedents with 
dismay, 

THE DEMOCRATIC INTRIGUES WITH THE BRITISH 
GOVERNMENT. 

Before dismissing the Northern Democracy, it may 
be remarked that, however great their anxiety "to 
throw a mantle of oblivion over the past," to pass 
over the appeal to arms against a constitutional elec- 
tion as on the whole a blunder, and to recommence 
the political game on the old footing, there is one 
passage especially in the secret history of the Rebel- 
lion upon which the American people have a right to 
be enlightened. 

I refer to their intrigues with the British Govern- 
ment, whose policy proved so disastrous to the com- 
merce of New York ; and the matter involves whatever 
of reputation may still cling to the wreck of the Dem- 
ocratic party. Who were the secret advisers in New 
York of the British Minister, Lord Lyons, in those in- 
terviews, whose only precedent in our history was 



38 



when Benedict Arnold conferred with Sir Henry Clin- 
ton ? The fact that such intrig-iies existed — a fact that 
would have astounded the country, had we not ceased 
to wonder at any new infamy in the progress of the 
Kebellion — we chanced to learn through a despatch of 
Lord Lyons, which was included by oversight, or with 
a motive, among the papers printed by order Parlia- 
ment. 

It appears that the men who approached Lord Lyons 
professed to be, and were believed by him to be, New 
York gentlemen of prominent position, and that they 
sought through him to shape the policy of the British 
Government for the purposes of the Democratic party. 
Profound silence on the part of the Democratic 
leaders in New York has met this charge against 
their personal honor and political integrity, officially 
presented to the world under the signature of the 
British Minister and in the records of the British Gov- 
ernment ; and yet here is a charge not simply of 
treason against our National Government, but of un- 
told infamy as regards the American people. The na- 
tion at large, and we of New York especially, have a 
right to know the names and the credentials of these 
men, who, in time of war, assumed in the name of 
the Democratic party to open negotiations with a for- 
eign government. 

Were they actually tlic men they represented tliem- 
selves to be, or were they fellows of the baser sort, 
tools of rebels at Richmond, who the better to effect 
their purposes assumed the name of New York gen- 
tlemen ? 



39 



The capture at sea of such open commissioners as 
Slidell and Mason was hailed with satisfaction by the 
American people ; but the Government, for reasons not 
yet explained, would seem thus far to have taken no 
steps to arraign before the tribunals of justice the 
New York intriguers with the British Government. 

Southern Unionists may well complain, as Mr. Botts 
has already done, that no steps have yet been taken 
to punish the rebels of the North, whose guilt was 
greater than that of the secessionists of the South : 
in as much as the Northerners had no apology in the 
doctrine of State allegiance, and were traitors alike to 
the National Government and their own States, besides 
plotting against the Union while enjoying its protec- 
tion and professing loyalty to its flag. 

If the Government for any reason hesitates to ar- 
raign the prominent Democratic leaders, whose names 
are associated with the developments of Lord Lyons, 
there is no reason why the people and the press 
should not arraign them at the bar of public opinion ; 
and judge of their defence, if any they have, for their 
treasonable and disloyal attempt to induce the inter- 
vention of England in the domestic aifairs of the Amer- 
ican Republic. 

THE RESPONSIBILITIES RESTING UPON CONGRESS. 

In considering the propriety of the hesitancy of Con- 
gress to yield their control of the reconstruction ques- 
tion by the adoption of any plan, however safe it may 
appear, by which the vacant seats in the Senate and 
the House shall be immediately filled with Southern 



40 



representatives, with the sanction of what oaths soever, 
it is proper to remember their position and responsi- 
bilities. 

They do not represent the disloyal faction that sym- 
pathized with the rebels, who denounced the war as 
a failure, and demanded that it should cease. They 
represent the loyal American people, who fought it to 
the close, and who, however magnanimous in relin- 
quishing indemnity for the past, are inflexible in re- 
quiring securities for the future, and who would never 
forgive their Congressional servants were they, through 
any blunder or weakness, to relinquish by legislation 
the safety accomplished by such sacrifices in the field, 
by the valor of our army and navy, and by the 
stern devotion of the people. 

Upon this point the confident expectation of rebel 
sympathizers in Europe of " National Repudiation," com- 
pensation for their slaves seems deserving of atten- 
tion. 

If these expectations should bo accomplished by the 
reinstatement in Congress of Southers Members, in such 
manner as to enable the Northern Democrats, by their 
aid, to control again the National Government, they 
would, in that case, have attained, in spite of their 
defeat in the war, a large share of what, in the 
first instance, they hoped to accomplish by the Re- 
bellion, 

Although the plan of a Southern Confederacy had 
been entertained for some thirty years, the rebel lead- 
ers anticipated almost to the last moment the ability 
to accomplish by the aid of their Northern allies a 



41 



coup d'etat, which should give them, with but little 
bloodshed, all that they desired. 

THE ORIGINAL DESIGN OF THE REBEL LEADERS. 

The plan of operations I first learned from a source 
which I knew to be reliable about the first of Jan- 
uary, 1861, when South Carolina alone had as yet 
passed an act of secession ; and, I may properly add, 
in reference to an item of such curious historic in- 
terest, that its correctness was attested a little more 
than a year ago by the late Lieutenant-General, whose 
memory Europe and America unite to honor. 

It was at a dinner at Mr. Alfred Pell's that I re- 
lated to General Scott what I had heard precisely as 
I shall state it now, and that veteran soldier listened 
attentively to the recital, nodded assent to each sep- 
arate item, and significantly remarked at its close : 
" It is a true bill." I need hardly say that the oppor- 
tunities of General Scott for learning accurately the 
designs of the rebels were unusually good, partly 
from the confidence with which he was treated by 
his old Southern friends, when they hoped to secure his 
adhesion to their cause, and again from his position as 
commander-in-chief during the early stages of the war. 

The original rebel plan, whose correctness is thus 
attested, was as follows : 

After the secession of South Carolina, the other cot- 
ton States were to follow as rapidly as the machin- 
ery of secession, by means of conventions, could be 
put into operation. That matter was decided and in 
train ; the more Northern and border States, which 



42 



were still doubtful, were to be coaxed, or dragooned 
into the movement as might be necessary, and espe- 
cially Maryland. As soon as Maryland should secede, 
she was to pass an act rescinding the act of cession 
to the United States of that part of the District of 
Columbia which had formerly belonged to Maryland. 
The moment that act was passed, Washington was to 
be seized imder color of law as belonging to the 
State of Maryland. The new Confederacy was to be im- 
provised, the Constitution and laws of the United 
States were to be re-adopted as they stood, with a 
single exception making slavery universal. 

Tlie new Confederacy was to be proclaimed the 
United States de facto. The allegiance of the army 
and navy was to be claimed, and would, they believed, 
be yielded. Recognition by the foreign ministers at 
Washington was to be demanded, and, as they felt 
assured would be conceded ; an invitation was to be 
extended to the Northern and Western States, excepting 
New England, and perhaps Western New York, to 
resume their places in the new Confederacy on pre- 
cisely the same terms as in the old ; those invita- 
tions they thought would be gradually accepted and 
the new Government was to move on. 

THE SCHEME DEFEATED BY MEMBERS OF THE CLUB. 

This was the bold online of a plan that depended 
for its execution on the concurrence of the Northern 
Democracy, and which but for the eiforts of the mem- 
bers the Union League Club might have been par- 
tially successful. It was through their vigilance that 



43 



Congress and the North were with difficulty aroused 
to the dangers that threatened the Capital ; and it was 
owing to information conveyed to the Government, by 
one of the most faithful and untiring of your body, 
that the Maryland Legislature, the moment it met, 
without waiting for a State convention, intended to 
prepare an act of secession, and commit Mai-yland to 
the fortunes of the Rebellion, that the orders were 
promptly given to General McClellan to arrest its mem- 
bers in advance of their assembling. This timely move, 
of the occasion for which the country has, I believe, 
never been publicly advised, checked the audacious plan 
by which Washington was to have been seized under 
color of law, with all its muniments and archives, and 
a new Government de facto proclaimed and recognized 
by the foreign ministers, in a manner well calculated 
to demoralize and dismay the country. 

This brief reference to the plot and the manner of 
its defeat may be interesting, not simply a& recalling 
one of many dangers which we have providentially 
escaped, but as reminding us that if now Congress, 
through any error of judgment, should admit to their 
seats in the Senate and the House disloyal Southern 
members in such numbers as to enable them, in con- 
junction with tlie Northern Democracy, again to control 
the Government, they would accomplish in great part 
the original object of the Rebellion, and might expect 
from their constituents, on their return to their homes, 
a reception such as would have met Sherman had he 
surrendered to Hood, or Meade and Grant if they had 
traitorously laid down their arms to Lee. Such a lamen- 



44 



table result, we all know, is as little desired by the 
President as it is by Congress and the people. 

THE QUESTION OF RECONSTRUCTION. 

The differences that have arisen between the Exec- 
utive and Congress on this question, and which I trust 
are being rapidly and harmoniously adjusted, have been 
purposely exaggerated by the opponents of the Gov- 
ernment, and unwisely accepted by some of its sup- 
porters as irreconcilable as regards principle and policy. 

Looking at the case in the light of the past action 
and utterances of the two branches, I see no such 
irreconcilable difference ; but simply a case where both 
parties are practically agreed as to the end to be 
aimed at, and generally as to the virtual powers of 
the Government ; and where they diflFer only as to the 
best method of accomplishing a common purpose. 

One reason perhaps for the partial difference in their 
view is at once natural and legitimate. The President, 
while the head of the Union party, is also the Exec- 
utive of the whole Republic, and may properly regard 
himself as the representative and guardian of the con- 
stitutional rights of every section and of everj^ class, 
especially of those now unrepresented in Congress ; 
whereas the Senators are peculiarly the representatives 
of their States, and the members of their respective 
constituencies. But apart from this difference, in the 
scope of their responsibilities arising from the wise 
distribution of power under our National Constitution, 
the President and the Union members of Congress 
represent together the rights, the honor, and the free- 



45 



dom of our country ; and no diiferences of opinion, 
however vexatious in regard to the details of recon- 
struction, should allow us for a moment to forget that 
the loyalty of the President has stood the severest 
test, and that. Southerner and slaveholder though he 
was, he stands at once the champion of the Union 
and the emancipator of the slave. 

The President, more convinced than Congress of the 
reliance to be placed on the returning loyalty of the 
South, and of the safety of admitting their represen- 
tatives, with certain qualifications, has recommended 
that cause as feasible, and safe. Congress, on the other 
hand, assisted doubtless by the advice of their con- 
stituents, coming to a different conclusion, have rejected 
the plan as involving a possible risk which they feel 
they ought not to incur. 

Of the sovereign right of the American people, and 
of the duty of Congress as their servants, to be 
assured of the loyalty and good faith of those who 
recently opposed them in the field, before they are re- 
admitted to a participation in the Government, there 
is no shadow of question. 

The President himself has acted upon this principle ; 
and, firm as he is in the support of the constitutional 
rights of the States, he properly insisted on the over- 
throw of slavery, which formed the very foundation of 
their State Constitutions, as the first condition towards 
their restoration to the rights they had forfeited by 
Eebellion. 

The reconstruction of our Republic on the basis of 
equal freedom and with fraternal harmony between the 



46 



sections, is a matter of such solemnity and g-randeur 
that to permit tlie intrusion of private griefs, personal 
disputes, or partisan motives, may be properly regarded 
as a crime. 

And here I will venture to say, for I but utter the 
opinion of thousands of our countrymen in Europe, 
that the bitter personalities indulged in at either end 
of Pennsylvania Avenue, have excited on this side of 
the water surprise, mortification, and regret, as not 
simply increasing the difficulties of harmonious action, 
but as tending to impair the influence of our Govern- 
ment and lower its dignity before the world. 

The reconstruction of our Eepublic is already' far 
advanced by the rescue of the South from the rebel 
tyranny at Richmond, which had extinguished all State 
rights and personal freedom, and by their restoration 
to the protection of the National Government, with uni- 
versal freedom opening a new future of intelligence 
and prosperity. The completion of the task is one 
that demands the wisest, calmest statesmanship, for it 
is the work not for a day, but for all time. It con- 
cerns the destiny of our Continent, and the fulfilment 
of its highest hopes, our peace and harmony, our pros- 
perity and strength at home, our honor, power, and 
prestige abroad. Upon our successful solution of this 
problem, if problem it can still be called, where the 
solution is so plain, depends the continuance of that 
moral influence which, since the fall of the Rebellion 
and the emancipation of the slaves, has made the very 
name of America a power, that in distant lands inspires 
the masses with hope, and their oppressors with fear. 



47 



Of the great questions which agitate tlie country, 
the most immediately important, that which concerns 
the readjustment of the representation from the South 
upon a legitimate basis, since the reason for allowing 
them the three-fifths representation for persons held to 
service has ceased to exist, will I presume be pro- 
vided for in an amendment to the Constitution with 
the cordial approval of the President ; and it is to 
be hoped that all further legislation bearing on the 
subject of reconstruction, will be marked wath such 
courtesy and wisdom on the part of Congress, as to 
facilitate and command the approval of the Executive. 

NATIONAL CHARACTER OF THE UNION PARTY. 

The policy of the Union party must continue to be, 
as it has been, broad and national, looking always to 
the welfare of the whole country, and never to that 
of a section or a faction. Like -all great parties, it 
has the misfortune to be misrepresented, and hampered 
at times by politicians bent upon power and plunder, 
ready to adopt any principle or policy, anti-slavery or 
pro-slavery, that may for the time assist their purpose, 
or even to sacrifice at once the party and the country. 

This was done by the professed Republicans who 
insidiously, at a most critical moment, defeated Wads- 
worth, and elected in his stead Horatio Seymour. And 
that dark deed should be remembered whenever the 
trading politicians, by whom it was perpetrated, recom- 
mend or oppose a national policy, and especially when 
their counsels tend to divide and weaken the Union 
party, as on that occasion, when their treachery sub- 



48 



jected the country to prolongation of the war at a 
fearful waste of blood and treasure. 

THE POLICY OF THE OPPOSITION. 

"We must expect, of course, a continuance of the 
stereotyped objections of unconstitutionality interposed 
on the part of the Democracy to every measure, exe- 
ecutive or congressional, that tends to extinguish the 
sectional issues by which they have thriven, and to 
secure from future interruption the national harmony. 

Their stern repugnance on constitutional grounds for 
the last five years to every proceeding that threatened 
death to the Eebellion, or promised freedom and safety to 
the Eepublic, recalls an interesting revelation which I 
quote from memory, made by Dr. Russell, of the Lon- 
don Times, not in his original letters, but in his sub- 
sequently published "Diary." He was dining with a 
Democratic banker of New Yoi'k at the commencement 
of Mr. Lincoln's administration, where he met Gov- 
ernor Seymour, and other politicians of that party, 
who favored him with a frank development of their 
policy. They did not conceal their pleasure at the sea 
of troubles in which the new Government of their op- 
ponents was floundering, nor their resolve whenever 
the Unionists raised their heads above water to " knock 
them back with the Constitution." 

We remember how invariably this policy was carried 
out, and how fiercely ev.ery act of Mr, Lincoln - or of 
Congress for the preservation of the country, was de- 
nounced as illegal. 

Governor Seymour had already proclaimed their doc- 



49 



trine, that "successful coercion by the North" would 
be equally "revolutionary" with "successful secession 
by the South," and each succeeding step from the re- 
solve of Mr. Lincoln to execute the law, and repossess 
the stolen forts, was in turn denounced as an uncon- 
stitutional usurpation. The call for troops, the organ- 
izing of the army, every right thing which the Pres- 
ident did, every judicious law which Congress enacted, 
the freeing of the slaves that came to our lines, the 
employment of slaves to relieve our soldiers, the Procla- 
mation of Emancipation, the arming of the freedmen, 
the Amendment of the Constitution, these and a thou- 
sand other acts were each and all revolutionary and 
immoral procedures, over which the Democracy bewailed 
and lamented. 

But the worst and most unconstitutional feature of 
the whole was that it proved, in Governor Seymour's 
phrase, " successful coercion." 

The campaigns of Grant at Vicksburg and of Meade 
at Gettysburg, and those of Sherman in Georgia, and 
of Grant on his summer's line from the Rapidan to 
Richmond, were decidedly revolutionary ; and while the 
loyal heart of the American people bounded with joy. 
Mayor Gunther, on behalf of the New York Democracy, 
refused to permit public rejoicings over the victories 
which in saving the American Republic brought to 
his party shame, grief, and disappointment. 

INTENDED REBELLION AT THE NORTH. 

In referring to the victories at Vicksburg and 
Gettysburg, the one opening the Mississippi to the 

4 



50 



West, and the other rolling- back the invading army 
of Lee, occurring- together in July, 1863, it should be 
remembered that they thwarted the impending design of 
rebellion in the North and West to strengthen the 
invaders, and that but for those signal events, a more 
desperate character would have been exhibited by the 
riots at New York, that for a time revelled in mur- 
der and arson, as if to teach us what we might ex- 
pect if we permitted the treason of slavery to triumph 
over American freedom. 

THE SUFFRAGE QUESTION. 

In regard to the question of suffrage among the 
freedmen, I am strongly inclined to believe, as I have 
already intimated, that the national policy of equal 
rights established by the Amendment to the Consti- 
tution, restoring in their full force, without the ex- 
ception worked by slavery, the doctrines of the Dec- 
laration of Independence, not as "glittering generali- 
ties," but as sober facts, has rendered inconsistent with 
the principles of republican government, under the 
present national policy, the class legislation of the 
States based upon the now extinguished exception. 

Should the Supreme Court, upon a thorough review 
of the national policy as affected by the Amendment, 
reach the conclusion that the National Constitution as 
amended no longer permits the States to establish in- 
equality, by the outlawry or disfranchisement of a class, 
the difficulties heretofore anticipated from an interfer- 
ence by Congress with the supposed rights of the 
States to disfranchise at their pleasure will be avoided. 



51 



The decision will affect North and South alike, and 
the question of suffrage on an equal basis will be 
opened for readjustment in all the States, with such 
conditions as regards residence, intelligence, and taxa- 
tion or property, as each State may severally prescribe. 

The antagonism of race which has hitherto existed 
between the whites and the blacks Avas the fruit of 
slavery, and unless fostered by unequal laws and for 
partisan purposes, it is likely to yield steadily to fair 
treatment, to the advancement wrought by education, 
and especially to the influence of a common interest. 

This was the case on our country's battle-fields, our 
Generals know it well, before the inspiration of a 
common patriotism and a common danger. 

Not alone the policy, but the duty and necessity of 
a gradual extension to the freedmen of the right of 
suffrage, as they prove themselves fit for it, has been 
recognized by leading minds of the most conservative 
habit, and the least liable to be influenced by a vis- 
ionary philanthropy or exaggerated views of the ca- 
pacity of the race. 

Our observant statesmen early in the war who were 
intimate with the scope of American principles, and 
impressed with the logic of events, instinctively recog- 
nized the fact that whenever our country should en- 
roll the slaves as defenders of the flag, she would 
initiate a policy and incur responsibilities that could 
not be repudiated when the war was ended, 

" If," said General Sherman, " you admit the negro 
" to this struggle for any purpose, he has a riglit to 
" stay in it for all ; and when the fight is over the 



52 



" hand that drops the musket cannot be denied the 
" ballot." 

Mr. Lincoln, whose words will ever fall upon atten- 
tive ears in the country that he loved and served so 
well, in speaking of the glorious result of the war 
in saving the destinies of our Republic, recalled the 
fact that there were " some black men who can re- 
" member that they helped mankind to this gi'eat con- 
" summation ;" and in his letter recommending that some 
of them should be let in, in defining the suffrage in 
Louisiana, he said with a prophetic truth, which the 
American people are beginning to realize, that "they 
"would probably help in some trying time to keep 
" the jewel of liberty in the family of freedom." 

Mr. President Johnson has expressed himself distinctly 
in favor of the propriety of negro suffrage. He said : 

"Were he in Tennessee he would try to introduce 
" negro suffrage gradually, first to those who had 
" served in the ■ army, those who could read and write, 
" and perhaps with a property qualification of two 
" hundred or two hundred and fifty dollars." 

Touching the general qualifications of electors in our 
Republic, Mr. Lincoln asked whether we ought not 
to elevate rather than degrade the franchise, remark- 
ing that " education and the elective franchise should 
" go hand in hand." That is the conviction of the 
most thoughtful among our people, and it has been 
well remarked by Mr. Coles, of California, that " edu- 
" cation is the handmaid of liberty, and it is indis- 
" pensable to the proper exercise of American citizen- 
" ship." 



53 



NECESSITY FOR EDUCATION AT THE SOUTH. 

To secure ignorance on the part of the masses was 
the deliberate policy of slavery ; and the extent to 
which it was carried, making them the helpless vic- 
tims of the Rebellion, is amply proved by the testi- 
mony of Southern statesmen, which tends to dispel 
the illusion that, while it is safe to intrust suffrage 
to the Southern whites, it would be dangerous to ex- 
tend it to the loyal and intelligent freedmen. 

The Hon. J. S. Lumpkin, of Georgia, long ago de- 
scribed the poor whites of the South as " far below 
the slaves in morals and civilisation," and he said 
further, " not one in a thousand of them can read, nor 
one in ten thousand can write ;" and added that he 
had met " many who had never seen a book or a news- 
paper, and some who had never heard of a Bible or 
spelling-book." This single item of Southern testimony, 
explaining the facility with which the secession lead- 
ers precipitated the Rebellion upon the Southern people, 
reminds us of the grand difficulty in reconstructing the 
South on a sure basis of prosperity, and shows that 
the work to be accomplished requires popular agencies, 
beyond an amendment to the Constitution or Congres- 
sional legislation. 

Slavery may be destroyed in a day, but its un- 
pleasant traits may survive, as in Jamaica, for more 
than a generation. The brutal ignorance, political de- 
generacy, and social degradation that it engenders, de- 
mand for their extinction systematic and persevering 
efibrts. 



54 



THE NATIONAL FREEDMEN'S AID UNION. 

Thus far the National Government has left to the 
voluntary action of the American people this essential 
enterprise, and the National Frecdmen's Aid Union, rep- 
resenting various societies throughout the country, whose 
Union, it may be here remarked, was in part accomplished 
by members of our Club, have now in their schools 
70,000 children. In advancing that noble work the 
Club will confer a permanent blessing both on the 
freedmen and on the country. 

Moral influences alone can renovate the States so 
long cursed by tlie c^niel rule of a despotic oligarchy, 
and direct aright public opinion, that great power of 
the age, which no American should undervalue who 
reviews the decline and fall of American slavery and 
of the party which sustained it. 

EFFECT OF IGNORANCE UPON SUFFRAGE IN NEW YORK. 

Universal education in a Republic governed by popu- 
lar suffrage is a thing not simply desirable but abso- 
lutely essential to the safety and welfare of the peo- 
ple. We, of New York, know by daily experience the 
evils that result from the exercise of the suffrage 
among a population uninstructed in the elements of 
American Freedom and unable to read the Constitution 
and laws of the country. 

Inevitably an unenlightened constituency become the 
blind tools of designing politicians, and in New York 
the less educated Democracy were made throughout the 
Rebellion to do the work of the aristocrats and despots 



55 



of Europe, whom they do not profess to love, in as- 
sisting the rebel attempt to divide the Union and to 
overthrow at once the American (jovernment and pop- 
ular freedom. 

The school-house and the village church are the true 
safeguards of republican liberty, the true guarantees 
for wise legislation ; and none know better than the 
tax-payers of New York the dangers that result from 
an unenlightened constituency in fostering the insolent 
ambition of unscrupulous leaders in facilitating the cor- 
ruption that thrives by " the lobby" and " the ring," and 
saddles the industry of the community with exorbi- 
tant taxes, the burthen of which is increased by the 
thought that the larger portion is diverted from its 
legitimate end to minister to private and political 
profligacy. 

A PARTY OF FREEDOM AT THE SOUTH. 

There is one other point on which I believe the 
Club can exert a wide and beneficial influence, and 
that is in developing a party of Union and freedom 
in the South. 

Under the despotic rule of slavery, intensified dur- 
ing the war into absolute tyranny, the anti-slavery 
sentiment which was known to exist among the South- 
ern people, was denied expression and expansion, and 
the old habit of caution, with perhaps a lingering 
fear of the unextinguished power of slavery, may still 
repress the real feeling of thousands of the people. 

Already are the economic influences of freedom, in 
advancing industry and enabling it to compete with 



56 



capital, teaching the Southern masses to realize the 
blessings of a free government, and to appreciate 
aright the blundering statesmanship which sacrificed 
them to the interest of the slaveholder and then in- 
volved them all in a common calamity. 

There is reason to believe that the most influential 
and respectable men of the South, and some of their 
eminent statesmen, are convinced that a new and en- 
lightened policy' of freedom and justice is essential 
to recover the States from the ruin caused by slavery, 
and completed by the Rebellion. This is the class, 
strengthened as it will presently be by immigration, 
upon whom should devolve the task of inaugurating 
and developing the prosperity of the South and secur- 
ing the happiness of both whites and blacks by har- 
mony between the races. 

The importance of those races to each other is large 
and mutual. To the presence of the freedmen, hardy, 
acclimated, accustomed to labor, skilled in the work 
of Southern plantations, and, as Stephens declared, 
singularly faithful, the Southern States that now treat 
them wisely will be indebted for a great share of their 
future prosperity. And now, the transition period, 
it were from slavery to freedom, is the time for es- 
tablishing those just and friendly relations which will 
secure a permanent cordiality, and prevent the growth 
of the ill-will that in Jamaica resulted in a brutal 
massacre on the one side, and judicial murders on the 
other. 



57 



SOUND VIEWS EXPRESSED IN GEORGIA. 

To show in part the foundations of my belief in re- 
gard to the increasing intelligence and right feeling 
of a large portion of the Southern people, allow me to 
quote a passage from the speech of Mr. Stephens to 
the Legislature of Georgia, to which I have already 
alluded, and which is the more significant from the in- 
fluence he unquestionably wielded at the South. After 
stating their acquiescence in the result of the war, 
and showing that it was their true policy to seek 
again happiness and prosperity in the Union, he re- 
ferred to the abolition of slavery, and to the new 
duties it imposed on them, in a spirit which I con- 
fess I think argues most favorably for the success of 
emancipation, and the establishment of just and cordial 
relations as equal citizens between those who so re- 
cently were masters and slaves. 

" The wisest and best of men err in their judg- 
" ment as to the probable workings of any new sys- 
" tern. Let us, therefore, give this one a fair and 
" just trial without prejudice, and with that earnest- 
" ness of purpose that always looks hopefully to suc- 
" cess. It is an ethnological problem, on the solution 
" of which depends not only the best interests of both 
" races, but it may be the existence of one or the 
" other, if not both. 

" The duty of giving this new system a fair and just 
" trial will require of you, as legislators of the land, 
" great changes in its former laws in regard to this 
" large class of population. Wise and humane pro- 



58 



" visions should be made for them. It is not for me 
" to go into detail; suffice it to say on this occasion, 
" that ample and full protection should be secured to 
" them, so that they may start equal before the law 
" in the possession and enjoyment of all rights of per- 
" sonal liberty and property. Many considerations 
" claim this at your hands ; among these may be stated 
" their fidelity in times past. They cultivated your 
" fields, ministered to your personal wants and com- 
" forts, nursed and reared your children, and even in 
" the hour of danger and peril they were in the main 
" true to you and yours. 

" To them we owe a debt of gratitude as well as 
" acts of kindness. This should be done, because they 
" are poor, untutored, uninformed, many of them help- 
" less, liable to be imposed upon, and need it. Legis- 
" lation should ever look to the protection of the weak 
" against the strong. All obstacles, if there be any, 
" should be removed which can possibly hinder or re- 
" tard the blacks from improving their condition to the 
" extent of their capacity. All proper aid should be 
" given to their own efforts, channels of education 
" should be opened up to them, schools and the usual 
" means of moral and intellectual training should be 
" encouraged among them. This will be the dictate 
" not only of what is right and just, but it is also the 
" promptings of the highest consideration of interest." ■ 
The speech from which are taken these significant 
extracts was ordered to be engrossed on the minutes 
of each branch of the Georgia Legislature ; and I have 
not learned that the honest policy thus boldly enunci- 



59 



ated as applicable to the present situation, by one who 
had been in favor of making slavery the corner-stone 
of a Southern empire, excited on the part of his hear- 
ers either displeasure or disapproval. 

SHARE IN THE WORK OF ALL LOYAL CITIZENS. 

While the duty of devising means of reconciling the 
diflSculties in the reconstruction question rests immedi- 
ately with the legislative branch of the Government, 
the larger share of the work devolves properly upon 
all loyal citizens. 

As General Schurz said, only the "negative" part 
of the Revolution is as yet accomplished ; the rest is 
to be performed, by those moral influences which the 
people are to direct, and those economic agencies that 
are working so surely in our favor. 

The evils existing at the South that are represented 
as creating the chief danger in immediate reconstruc- 
tion are, in the words of the same officer, " an utter 
" absence of national feeling," a sentiment that so 
strongly inspires the freedmen ; and next, a want of con- 
fidence, not unnatural under the circumstances, between 
the whites and the blacks. And General Schurz, in his 
very able report, justly remai-ked that the surest course 
of changing the feelings of the Southern people is to 
embark them " in a new career of activity in a com- 
mon field " with those whom they have so long con- 
" sidered as their enemies." 



60 



SOCIAL COMMINGLING RECOMMENDED BY GEN. GRANT. 

General Grant in his letter to the President on the 
18th of last December, said : 

"It is to be regretted that there cannot be a greater 
" commingling at this time between the citizens of both 
" sections, and particularly of those intrusted with the 
" law-making power." 

That suggestion from our Lieutenant-General is one 
that our Club can act upon with perhaps more weight 
and influence than any body in the country, and I re- 
spectfully commend to your consideration the propriety 
of cordially opening your doors to Southern gentlemen 
coming to New York, who, however deeply involved 
they may have been in the Rebellion, are now prepared 
not simply to acquiesce in the result of the war and 
the abolition of slavery, but to assist in the work of 
reconstruction upon the basis of universal education 
and equal right. 

In your rooms, in addition to the members who re- 
present the loyal sentiment of our city, and Northern 
governors and State legislators, they will meet the gal- 
lant officers of the Army and Navy, who come to the 
Union League Club, assured that they will encounter 
none who denounced the war as a failure while it was 
being fought, or who refused to rejoice over Union 
victories when they were won, or who reserved the 
renewal of their pledges that the Union should be pre- 
served, until after their efforts to dissolve it had been 
defeated. 

There they will meet also Northern statesmen, and 



61 



many of the Union senators and members of Congress, 
who, I trust, more frequently than ever before, will 
accept our welcome whenever they visit our metrop- 
olis : and they will learn how truly with the deter- 
mination in the Northern mind, to insist that our na- 
tional policy shall henceforth be that of equal and 
universal freedom, is blended a deep and earnest de- 
sire that no sectional strife may again disturb our 
peace, but that the South and the North may be more 
closely bound than ever before in the bonds of a com- 
mon interest and mutual affection. 

OUR NATIONAL POSITION IN EUROPE. 

The position of America at this moment, as con- 
trasted with that which she occupied during the Ee- 
bellion, or with that now held by those powers of 
Europe that were then hoping for our dissolution, is 
one of which our countrymen on the Continent are 
constantly reminded, and which, to all who did their 
duty in the struggle, affords occasion for national 
pride and thankfulness. 

Curiously enough, the German quarrel over the ter- 
ritory filched from Denmark, and that may yet involve 
in the war the whole of Europe, is regarded by emi- 
nent statesmen as an incidental result of our American 
troubles. The plundering of Denmark took place at a 
time when England was still ringing with the musical 
refrain of her Laureate's greeting to the Sea-King's 
daughter from over the sea : 

— Saxon, Dane, or Norman, we, 

Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be, 

We Eire each all Dane in our welcome of thee, 

AliEXANDBA. ! 



62 



And it is said that that wrong to Denmark would 
not have been permitted by the British Government, of 
whose course on the subject Engh'shmen rarely speak 
with pride, had not our dissatisfaction with their con- 
duct as a neutral, in the matter of the iron-clads, ren- 
dered it inconvenient for her at the time to appear as a 
belligerent. 

Be this as it may, England, remembering St, Albans 
and the Alabama, frankly confesses her astonishment, 
and all Europe heeds the lesson, as Grant and Meade 
guard the neutrality of our Canadian border, and teach 
the world that America, in fulfilling her duties to for- 
eign nations upon the broad basis of international right, 
scorns the diplomacy of finesse ; and, in accordance 
with her own bright precedents from the days of 
Washington, preserves stainless her own honor, 

France has heard, at last, the voice of the American 
people, speaking more plainly than the Department at 
Washington, or our Minister at Paris, disapproving the 
continuance of her rule in Mexico ; and her troops are 
to withdraw, as she promises, with no stipulation on 
our part for the recognition of the bastard empire of 
Maximilian ; and thus our olden friendship with France 
is to be maintained unbroken, and our traditional policy 
upheld, and Europe learns that the only way to pre- 
serve our friendship is to respect our rights, 

THE SITUATION AT HOME. 

But the questions connected with the reconstruction 
of our Republic are those to which our thoughts con- 
tinually revert, and I beg to add a closing word u[)on 
the topic. 



63 



The spirit of Slavery and the Eebellion still lives, 
though Freedom and the Union are victorious, and 
events indicate that the strife ended by the war is to 
be renewed in politics ; and the rebel sympathizers in 
Europe anticipate on the new battle-field an easy vic- 
tory. 

Taug-ht by disastrous experience the devotion of our 
people to American nationality, our opponents will rally 
this time itnder the old flag, and, with the cry of the 
Constitution and national harmony, they hope to con- 
trol the Government which they were unable to destroy, 
to punish the nation for its victory, and compensate 
the South for its defeat. 

When we calmly review the past and mark the 
spirit of Eebellion at the North or the South, for it 
was the same in either section, it would be folly to 
shut our eyes to the dangers that threaten the coun- 
try, if by personal feud or partisan faction the Un- 
ion party should be demoralized or broken. 

Slavery was the root of the Rebellion, but it was 
something more than the slavery which, introduced 
into the colonies by European Governments, had for 
two centuries been tolerated in America. 

The framers of our Constitution disapproved the sys- 
tem, shrank from its name, and anticipated its extinc- 
tion. It was withih our own recollection that the new 
school arose in Church and State .which taught that 
slavery was a blessing to be fostered and extended, 
and which, in the spirit of its enactments, put to 
the blush the code of Draco. 

Upon this basis arose that mongrel system of athe- 



64 



ism and Christianity, which, scouting " the higher law," 
rested upon the code of slavery, and illustrated the 
Sermon on the Mount by the heathenish caste of North- 
ern churches and the African barbarism of Southern 
plantations. 

Eenouncing the Christian doctrine of equal brother- 
hood — the American doctrine of equal rights — their 
Christianity and statesmanship were briefly compre- 
hended in their advertisements of "slaves and other 
cattle to be sold at auction ;" and then came by easy 
steps secret treason and open war ; the massacre of 
unresisting blacks at Fort Pillow, the starvation by 
tens of thousands of our brave soldiers in the prisons 
of Andersonville, the attempted burning of New York 
by night with its hundreds of thousands of women 
and children, the New York riots and murders in 
July, 1863, and every other atrocity up to the murder 
of Lincoln, and the attempted assassination in his bed 
of the venerable and helpless Secretary, And here I 
may remark that I have heard the trial of those as- 
sassins denounced in Europe as unconstitutional, and 
their hanging declared to be murder, for which Mr, 
Johnson at some time would be held accountable. 

That such utter demoralization and such wide-spread 
crime and misery should so rapidly have resulted from 
the immoral doctrine that the black men had no 
rights, has impressed the nation and the world ; and 
the Christian teachers who directly or otherwise have 
apologized for slavery, or lent it their countenance, 
may well stand aghast at the part they have borne 
in this bloody business. 



65 



But the moral to be learned from it all is, the duty 
and therefore the wisdom of ending slavery not alone 
as we have done in its worst form, but in its every 
feature and its slightest incident, and reducing to 
practice the words of President Johnson, that the fab- 
ric of our Government rests upon the basis of popu- 
lar right. 

In the war we learned — our mothers and widows 
know at what cost — the consequences of our refusal 
in the beginning " to do justice and love mercy ;" and 
now the calamities threatened us by the same spirit of 
Rebellion warn us in advance that our duty and our 
interests are identical. 

The designs of disunion Democrats at home, and of 
the unfriendly Rothschilds and Aristocrats abroad, against 
our national credit and national honor, can be contem- 
plated with equanimity, if we remember in time the 
suggestion of Sherman, that the hand that has wielded 
the musket in our defence cannot be denied the ballot, 
and recall the prophetic words of Lincoln, that those 
who " helped mankind to this great consummation," may 
again help in some trying time to keep the jewel of 
liberty in the family of freedom. 

CONCLUSION, 

I am told, gentlemen, by members of the Club whom 
I have met in Paris, and especially by the Rev. Dr. 
Thompson, that my election as President was intended, 
by a part at least of the members, as a tribute not 
simply to myself personally, but to the soundness of the 
principles, and the wisdom of the policy, with which my 

5 



ee 



name had been identified in the contest between free- 
dom and slavery, that for thirty years has convulsed 
our country, and whose conclusion in National Unity 
and Emancipation — to which you so largely contributed — 
has given a new future to our Republic, and new hope 
to mankind. 

In view of the recollections that such an announce- 
ment naturally recalls, as contrasting the present with 
the past, it will be more easy for you to imagine than 
for me to express the feelings aroused in my bi-east by 
the thought that the honor thus paid me is shared by 
my old associates — the living and the dead ; and you 
will permit me simply to say, that in this light I regard 
your action in placing me at the head of the Club with 
a deeper sensibility and a more profound gratitude. 

But I should prove myself unworthy of the post 
were I to continue to hold it while unable to fulfil its 
duties. 

When I accepted the office, I thought it possible that 
I might soon return. I now find that I shall be de- 
tained abroad until late in the autumn, and, therefore, 
with renewed thanks for your confidence and kindness, 
I respectfully submit to you my resignation. 
I am. Gentlemen, 

Yours always faithfully, 

JOHN JAY. 

Hotel Westminster, Paris, 
June 23, 1866. 






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